History's shadow

By David Maisel

David Maisel photographs the forgotten, the unseen, and the invisible. In 2006, he captured the unclaimed copper canisters containing the ashes of patients who died at a state-run psychiatric hospital, originally known as the Oregon State Insane Asylum, between 1883 and the 1970s. The result was Library of Dust, a gorgeous oversized book and exhibition. Then in 2008, Maisel collected a series of "Black Maps," huge aerial photographs of strip mines, lake beds, and other large features that aren't easily recognizable out of context but reveal curious and provocative patterns and topographies. His latest project is History's Shadow, an exploration of memory and excavation through x-rays of artifacts from San Francisco's Asian Art Museum. History's Shadow is on display at the Haines Gallery in San Francisco until June 4. Later this year, Nazraeli Press will publish the series as a monograph, including a short story by Jonathan Lethem. We are thrilled to present Maisel's ghostly images and his commentary on Boing Boing. — David Pescovitz

As a documentarian of sorts, my photographic projects present what might be considered technical, abstract images seen through a metaphoric eye. The ongoing themes of my work concern the dual processes of memory and excavation, as I examine what societies leave behind as artifacts and evidence of their cultures. In my current project, History's Shadow, I have utilized scientific images from art conservation archives to create new photographs. Specifically, in this series I have re-photographed x-rays depicting sculpture and artifacts from antiquity, scanning and digitally manipulating the selected source material.

Through the x-ray process, the artworks of origin become de-familiarized and de-contextualized, yet acutely alive and renewed. The ghostly images of these x-rays seem to surpass the power of the original objects of art.

My x-ray-derived photographs fuse the temporal, the artistic and the scientific, permitting us to see into previously invisible realms. The shadow-worlds they occupy are informed by the black space surrounding the images, which in some instances becomes a vast nether world, and in others becomes the velvety ground of some kind of brain scan/portrait.

I began this series while a Scholar in Residence at the Getty Research Institute, and have continued it by working with material from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. I plan to develop this series over time, by collaborating with museums around the world whose holdings reflect the past of a broad range of cultures.